Many users interact with both digital and physical documents on a daily basis. In many instances, however, as computers improve and technology advances, users are shifting away from physical space to digital space. For example, photographers almost exclusively work in digital space when capturing and editing pictures. As another example, many offices are going “paperless” by eliminating the need to store paper copies of files. Indeed, working with digital documents provides users with a convenience, collaboration, and accessibility not provided by physical documents. As part of the transition from physical space to digital space, however, certain disadvantages have arisen.
To illustrate, the human mind excels at understanding spatial connections in the physical world, especially connections that are visually apparent. For example, a user who has various stacks of files and folders in his or her office, when asked for the location of a particular file, can quickly and accurately locate the exact location of the file. The same user, however, may struggle to locate a digital copy of the file in the digital realm. As such, the user may resort to external sources for help, such as a search function on a computer, which can often be slow and unreliable.
As another example, a user may be working with a number of digital documents on a computing device, for example, as part of a work project. If the user needs to switch to another project, the user often closes the documents from the first project and opens the documents for the other project. Upon switching back to the first project, the user must re-locate, re-open, and often re-arrange the documents from the first project on one or more display devices. Accordingly, the user is often much more efficient at storing, locating, and retrieving documents in the physical realm.
Accordingly, there are a number of considerations to be made in document management and organization when working with digital documents.